Tuesday’s op-ed in The Daily Californian by Ronald Cruz caught my attention for a variety of reasons, the first being that I just recently graduated from a high school in Texas, and as a member of the top 10 percent. While I wholeheartedly agree with Cruz’s goals of increasing diversity on college campuses, and making college campuses more representative of the overall population, I must emphatically disagree with his assertion that the “10 percent plan is, by far, the most democratic, equal, fair and transparent admissions system of any elite university in the country.” Instead I wish to offer an alternative method, which, in my opinion, is much fairer than drawing an arbitrary cut-off line. That method can be described as affirmative action based on socioeconomic status, and not race.
First, I’d like to address the Ten Percent rule. At the outset it is important to point out that the “Ten Percent” rule is a misnomer as a few years ago, University of Texas, Austin changed the arbitrary 10 percent with an even more arbitrary eight percent. That being said, this past June, I graduated from Pearland High School in Pearland, Texas, well within the top eight percent of my class and was basically guaranteed admission to UT Austin. This method, however, is inherently discriminatory toward small high schools and highly competitive high schools. After my junior year, I was fortunate to be able to participate in Boys State and in the High School Aerospace Scholars program through which I met other rising seniors from all over Texas. Some of those I met had only as few as 11 students in their graduating class. Only 11, meaning not even the valedictorian of that class would be eligible for automatic admission at UT Austin.
Further, schools with such a low enrollment are sometimes not eligible to participate in athletic and academic competitions organized by the University Interscholastic League — which is the most prominent inter-school organization in Texas — and so these students are often denied the ability to show their skills through means other than class rank. In contrast, my high school won the 2010 Football Conference 5A Division 1 — division with the largest schools in the state — state championship in 2010, appeared on the Yahoo! homepage and was acknowledged by our congressman on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives for this distinction. It is therefore clear that the Ten Percent rule puts students in smaller schools at a disadvantage over those in large schools.
Another dynamic that needs to be considered is the rigor of different high schools. It is strongly believed in my city that of the two high schools in the city, one is more competitive than the other, and that perhaps neither of these schools is as competitive as some of the schools in neighboring districts. Quite simply, this means that not every top eight percent is created equal. It is entirely possible that a student just outside the eighth percent in his or her high school is infinitely more qualified to attend UT Austin than the valedictorian of another high school. And what if this student just outside the eighth percent is in fact an underrepresented minority? And this arbitrary cut-off line raises a few questions. Is it fair that the student that just barely missed out on the top eight percent has to compete in a much more rigorous process for much more limited number of seats at the university? And why is it eight percent? Why not nine percent or seven percent?
So instead of randomly drawing lines in the sand, I would like to propose a more efficient solution. The underlying problem in inequality is not high school rank or race, but resources. Wealthier students are able to afford expensive classes for SAT and ACT preparation and are able to afford to hire a tutor to get help in a class. And wealthier schools can often present better opportunities to their students. The benefits of wealth are conferred upon the wealthy, not upon members of a race. In this case it is important to ask whether an extremely wealthy and resourceful member of an underrepresented minority group should have an advantage over an impoverished member of the majority? Thus, I believe that while affirmative action has a place in our society, the current system needs to be reformed to actually address the current situation.
Many colleges boast that their admissions processes are need-blind, but I suggest that these processes become need-conscious. That students have achieved to the best of their abilities despite their economic handicap should be considered in the college admissions process. Affirmative action cannot blindly favor students because of their skin color. It needs to look deeper into individual stories, and the story of what conditions under which someone was brought up is much more meaningful than the ethnicity they were born with.
Tejas Dave is a UC Berkeley freshman and graduated from Pearland High School in Pearland, Texas.
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In an earlier post , I meant that if grades and SAT scores are the sole basis of admissions at Penn and Princeton then more than half of the freshman class in those 2 schools will vanish into thin air because of the vast system of preferences that exists in private schools.
Of course under the 8 % rule even 1 student in an 11 person senior graduating high school class will get into UT-Austin. The 10 % rule was changed to 8% due to space limitations at UT Austin among other things.
The demographics of Texas is such that in parts of Eastern Texas there are high schools where nearly all the students are white. There a few high schools in Houston where the students are nearly all black, high schools in the Rio Grande Valley will tend to be nearly all Mexican.
The wealthy of each racial group will tend to be represented more in the top 8 % of a high school where that particular racial group tends to dominate in that particular high school.
It would be thoroughly wrong for example that a Latino from McAllen or Laredo to be admitted at UT- Austin over someone from Houston who had better grades and SAT scores and POORER. Of course many politicians in Texas like the 8 % rule because the wants constituents in their districts to be represented at UT- Austin. Politics indeed comes into play in the admissions process at UT-Austin.
Tejas Dave clearly deserves to be at Cal. The reality in California though is that Asian immigrants on average outperform non-Asians as well as natural born U.S. citizens of Asian heritage in every socioeconomic level, so a fair system like the one Tejas proposed would still result in too few Black, Latino, and Native American faces at top UC campuses. Democrat politicians as well as UC chancellors will still argue for using race as a factor in admissions. Tejas Dave will soon learn that there is no common sense when it comes to racial politics in California.
The use of subjective criteria in the ” holistic ” admissions model in the eyes of the UC is just another way of trying to increase the number of Latinos and blacks in the UC system. This is no different from the way private schools be it Penn or Princeton use subjective criteria to implement their vast system of preferences. That is the reason as to why if grades and SAT scores are the sole basis of admissions at Penn or Princeton more than of the freshman class will just vanish into thin air.
The essay portion of the UC application is just another way for Latinos to increase their numbers in the UC system by appealing to the sympathies of the readers. The mention of one’s race is supposedly ignored in one’s UC essay, there are many ways of going around it. Mentioning that one hears gunfire at night or having gangs in the neighborhood is just one way of doing it.
Bottomline is that you cannot deny admission to someone who is POORER who had better grades and SAT scores in favor of someone else who is Wealthier and had lower grades and SAT scores regardless of the race of either party, or if either party claims that their mother is dying of cancer.
The whole ACT/SAT preparation issue is a red herring. First, there is zero evidence that these prep courses do anything you can’t duplicate just by borrowing a study guide from a library. By the same logic, looking at grades is equally meaningless, because rich parents can afford to hire tutors. Second, SAT/ACT scores matter very little for admissions decisions; colleges mostly look at grades, your essay, and extracurricular activities.
Can you point to concrete evidence supporting your proposal’s underlying logic?
Is there well-researched evidence of a hold-back due to parental income or wealth? An anecdote: I live in a city where some less-well-off significantly out-perform those from families of greater means; it’s not always true, of course, but it happens enough to be well-noticed here. Why not reward drive & determination, hard work, and effort? Ample support is generally available to all here where I live; there’s little evidence of restrictions imposed by a lack of income or wealth (and, where I live, there’s quite a spread between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’).
Why not tilt towards a meritocracy?
Great evaluation and insight. I love the idea of a “need-conscious” approach.
California, meet Tejas. You will be hearing from him again.